THX Cinema processing

THX is an exclusive set of standards and technologies established by the world-renowned film production company, Lucasfilm Ltd. THX grew from George Lucas’ personal desire to make your experience of the film soundtrack, in both movie theatres and in your home theatre, as faithful as possible to what the director intended.

Movie soundtracks are mixed in special movie theatres called dubbing stages and are designed to be played back in movie theatres with similar equipment and conditions. This same soundtrack is then transferred directly onto Laserdisc, VHS tape, DVD, etc., and is not changed for playback in a small home theatre environment.

THX engineers developed patented technologies to accurately translate the sound from the movie theatre environment into the home, correcting the tonal and spatial errors that occur. On this product, when the THX indicator is on, THX features are automatically added in Cinema modes (e.g. THX Cinema, THX Surround EX).

Re-Equalization

The tonal balance of a film soundtrack will be excessively bright and harsh when played back over audio equipment in the home because film soundtracks were designed to be played back in large movie theatres using very different professional equipment. Re-Equalization restores the correct tonal balance for watching a movie soundtrack in a small home environment.

Timbre Matching

The human ear changes our perception of a sound depending on the direction from which the sound is coming. In a movie theatre, there is an array of surround speakers so that the surround information is all around you. In a home theatre, you use only two speakers located to the side of your head. The Timbre Matching feature filters the information going to the surround speakers so that they more closely match the tonal characteristics of the sound coming from the front speakers. This ensures seamless panning between the front and surround speakers.

GLOSSARY

Adaptive Decorrelation

In a movie theatre, a large number of surround speakers help create an enveloping surround sound experience, but in a home theatre there are usually only two speakers. This can make the surround speakers sound like headphones that lack spaciousness and envelopment. The surround sounds will also collapse into the closest speaker as you move away from the middle seating position. Adaptive Decorrelation slightly changes one surround channel's time and phase relationship with respect to the other surround channel. This expands the listening position and creates – with only two speakers – the same spacious surround experience as in a movie theatre.

A.S.A. (Advanced Speaker Array)

ASA is a proprietary THX technology which processes the sound fed to 2 surround and 2 surround back speakers to provide the optimal surround sound experience. When you set up your home theater system using all eight speaker outputs (Left, Center, Right, Surround Right, Surround Back Right, Surround Back Left, Surround Left and Subwoofer), placing the two Surround Back speakers close together facing the front of the room as shown in the diagram will provide the largest sweet spot. If for practical reasons you have to place the Surround Back speakers apart, you will need to go to the THX Audio Set-up screen and choose the setting that most closely corresponds to the speaker distance, which will re-optimize the surround sound field. ASA is used in two new surround modes; THX Ultra2 Cinema and THX Music Mode.

THX ULTRA2 CINEMA MODE

THX Ultra2 Cinema mode plays 5.1 movies using all 8 speakers giving you the best possible movie watching experience. In this mode, ASA processing blends the side surround speakers and back surround speakers providing the optimal mix of ambient and directional surround sounds. This mode permits the playback of a non Surround EX/ES encoded 5.1 movie to be played back over a 7.1 system. DTS-ES (Matrix and 6.1 Discrete) and Dolby Digital Surround EX encoded soundtracks will be automatically detected, if the appropriate flag has been encoded. Some Dolby Digital Surround EX soundtracks are missing the digital flag that allows automatic switching. If you know that the movie that you are watching is encoded in Surround EX, you can manually select the THX Surround EX playback mode, otherwise THX Ultra2 Cinema mode will apply ASA processing to provide optimum replay.

 

INFORMATION

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